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February 13, 2013

App Review: Toca Boca

Late last year we discovered a Swedish children's app making company called Toca Boca. They have loveable characters, interesting scenarios and fun sounds and music. The lively colours are really appealing and remind me of my first solo trip to Sweden, back before my motherhood days. Awwww.

Really, these apps are fun and encourage creativity. I even had them loaded on my iPad mini and got my co-workers into them over our lunch hour. These games transcend language and age barriers - which also makes them perfect for kids with special needs. They are fun, but not frustrating, encouraging imagination and not goal-based perfection or scoring points.

The first app we picked up by Toca Bocawas Toca Hair Salon because I noticed my son liked pretending to cut hair. Luckily, we never leave him alone with scissors! I decided I would let him indulge that fantasy by finding an app for that and there was one!

They also had a Christmas edition. My son chopped Santa's hair, blew dry it to oblivion and then snapped this pic of it!

Hilarious!

Santa is such a good sport!

In the regular version, he loves cutting off everyone's hair. The characters make little scared noises (can you blame them?) as he shaves them down to the scalp. Then he dresses them up with bows and hats (it's all about the accessories!)

Many of their apps allow you to take pictures of your creations, but you can also take a pic of yourself with the characters. Look at this one he took while in the car during our Florida vacation:

That one was Toca Tailor, which lets you dress up characters. They also have apps for you (let's be honest now, they are so much fun!) or your child to play doctor, or DJ (with Toca Band) or even chef (with Toca Kitchen). Just a head's up, the Christmas version and the Kitchen Monster version are currently FREE, so jump on the deal if you want to try them.

The regular price of all their apps is $2.99.

We have almost all of their apps and the Little Man plays with at least one of them each evening during his limited iPad time. Not sure there's a better endorsement than that!

Disclaimer: we were not compensated in any way for this review. We just like them!